If social media was all you knew, would you start a blog?
7 February 2025
Tangentially related to yesterday’s post. This is something Jatan Mehta asked a few weeks ago. It’s an intriguing question. If social media platforms, Twitter/X, Instagram, etc, had remained as they started, maintaining chronological feeds, displaying content posted by accounts a member had chosen to follow in their feed, and keeping algorithms and political whims out of the mix, then no, maybe not.
As I wrote yesterday, I was there when (the original) Twitter landed. Quite a number of people who hitherto had been blogging, eventually went all in with the micro-blogging platform. It was just so much easier, plus no financial cost was involved. After a time, many of these people completely stopped posting content on their blogs, which all gradually disappeared as domain name registrations lapsed.
So it doesn’t entirely come down to come to the presence of social media, it comes down to what suits an individual. Maintaining a self-hosted website is more effort, but, to me, feels like second nature. Nevertheless, I still had a Twitter account, and even a Facebook page (it’s still there, somewhere), as having one for your brand was once a thing. However, I always regarded these social media presences as “out posts”.
They were extensions only of my online presence; not an integral part of it. Even back in 2008, there was the risk the service might shutdown abruptly, or the administrators might pull the plug on your account for whatever reason, without warning (or recourse). To some people, going “all in” on social media seemed foolhardy. Others were obviously prepared to take their chances, in exchange for the convenience the platforms offered.
But the social media platforms have changed a lot since 2008. All the more so in recent months. Being reliant on social media platforms has become a liability for some. Even the more “indie” platforms, such as Mastodon or Bluesky, are not, for various reasons, completely risk free either. The question then of starting a self-hosted blog, after being a lifelong social media user, now seems more a matter of necessity, rather than familiarity.
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social media, social networks, technology, trends
Could these extraterrestrials build and pilot flying saucers?
7 February 2025
Kurzgesagt speculates on what extraterrestrial life might look like on planets elsewhere in the galaxy. But this may not be quite what we were expecting…
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Slow and steady wins the culture wars?
7 February 2025
Keeping track of what’s happening (or being said) in the world, particularly the United States, in these past few weeks feels like an impossible task. Trying to make sense of it all is another matter entirely. But as Tyler Cowen, writing at Marginal Revolution, seems to suggest, it’s all part of a bigger scheme:
You will not win all of these cultural debates, but you will control the ideological agenda (I hesitate to call it an “intellectual” agenda, but it is). Your opponents will be dispirited and disorganized, and yes that does describe the Democrats today. Then just keep on going. In the long run, you may end up “owning” far more of the culture than you suspected was possible.
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America, current affairs, politics
Bluesky reaches 30 million members, are you excited, or not?
6 February 2025
Social media and micro-blogging platform Bluesky passed the thirty-million member mark last week. It must be an exciting time for the Bluesky founders and backers. Exciting also for members who had been looking for an alternative to the likes of Twitter/X. I say this as one of the earlier members of Twitter, which I originally signed up for in 2007 I think. At that point though, Twitter was one of a kind; it was the first of its kind. It would spawn numerous competitors, including Plurk, and Identi.ca, though few struggled to gain traction. By the end of 2009, after being online four years, with about twenty-six million members, Twitter was the place to be.
Up until that point, I’d met close to one-thousand people, many of whom knew of me through this website. But a lot were people who’d just stumbled upon my account, and wanted to connect. Here was a place that was one, big, on-going, conversation. Making Twitter friends was easy in those early days (I could say the same about blogging). Twitter seemed like a big old friendly village. But once sky-rocketing growth came — something founders and backers has been eagerly anticipating — things began to change. And that was good. For some. Good, for instance, for the Twitter gurus, those taking it upon themselves to educate the rest of us about the “correct way” to use Twitter.
And of course of influencers. I’m not exactly sure when either arrived en masse, but I’d say many had made their presence felt by 2010. I think that’s when I began to lose interest in the platform: it’d become too much noise, and not enough signal. Having said that, I kept my account going, ticking over, for another decade, then some. But Twitter was no longer that big old friendly village. And nor, of course, could it stay that way. The platform had to grow, and begin making a return for its backers. Some of the people I followed, and who followed me, became gurus and influencers. Some became both. But by then, I wasn’t really interested in them.
I’d been using Twitter for three or four years, I didn’t need someone lecturing me, especially someone who’d spent less time on the platform than I had. As for the influencers, little of what they said meant much to me. But as a platform, Twitter had matured. It was no longer the exciting, pioneering, experience it had once been. I might — if I were more of a social media power user — call Bluesky exciting, but I could never describe it as pioneering. Twitter, for better or worse, is/was the only micro-blogging slash social media platform to stake that claim. Everything else now, like it or lump it, is a case of been there, done that.
Twitter opened up the frontier, blazed the trail. Kind of like the Telegraph Road, no? Twitter built the cities and the roads between them. Bluesky, Mastodon, and whatever else, may be new, relatively new, but they are picking up were Twitter left off. Micro-blogging slash social media platforms are no longer the undiscovered country. I don’t mean to run down Bluesky in particular. Thirty-million members in two years is impressive. But I dare say there are a few gurus and influencers among that number. Maybe too many, all bringing with them more noise, and less signal. It’s enough to make me fear we’re seeing an early-stage re-run of late-stage Twitter.
I might be a member of Bluesky, and Mastodon, but late-stage Twitter is not something I want to see a repeat of. Give me, I say, a tried and true, though hardly new, personal website, any day.
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Chappell Roan wins best new artist at the 2025 Grammys
4 February 2025
American singer/song writer Chappell Roan, who topped the 2024 Triple J Hottest 100 just over a week ago, was named best new artist at the 2025 Grammys yesterday.
Roan used her acceptance to call on record companies to offer more support to emerging artists, in the form of improved healthcare and financial support, telling gathered industry executives: “we got you — but do you got us?”
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Don’t believe all the news you hear on commercial TV and radio
4 February 2025
Amanda Meade, writing for The Guardian:
People who get most of their news from commercial TV and radio are more likely to believe the conspiracy theory that climate change is a natural phenomenon rather than caused by humans, a new study has found.
The research conducted by Monash University, based in Melbourne, Australia, also found people who sourced news from commercial media outlets, generally scored lower on a measure of civic values, compared to those relying on non-commercial, and public, broadcasters. People with lower civic value scores tend to be more reluctant to take on views that clash with theirs.
And, if I’m understanding the study findings correctly, almost sixty-percent of Australians source news from social media platforms. With Facebook about to do away with fact-checkers, that’s going to be a lot of people with access to news that possibly has not been substantiated or verified.
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The Teachers Lounge, a film by Ilker Catak, with Leonie Benesch
3 February 2025
The Teachers Lounge (AKA Das Lehrerzimmer), trailer, made in 2023, and directed by Ilker Çatak, is a cross between a (kind of) psychological thriller, and a (kind of) whodunit, set in a German elementary/primary school. I kid you not; the tension is palpable.
A person unknown has been stealing small quantities of money from bags and wallets left in the school’s staff room, and idealistic young teacher Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch), controversially attempts to uncover the identity of the thief.
Carla’s efforts to solve the mystery may be well intentioned, the presence of a would-be burglar in their midst both irritates and unsettles her colleagues, but you know what they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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Anne-Kathrin Gummich, Eva Lobau, film, Ilker Catak, Leonard Stettnisch, Leonie Benesch
That’s not a knife: iconic Australian film Crocodile Dundee gets recut
3 February 2025
The knife, the editing room knife, has recently been taken to ocker Australian film Crocodile Dundee.
Producers deemed the slapstick comedy — that swept the once Sydney Harbour Bridge rigger, and television personalty Paul Hogan, to big screen fame in 1986 — to be out of touch with the expectations of contemporary movie audiences. This necessitated a number of “considered edits”, says Garry Maddox, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald:
Updating classic films can sometimes upset fans — there was a ruckus when George Lucas had Han Solo defending himself from bounty hunter Greedo rather than firing the first shot in a 1997 special edition of Star Wars — but the long tradition of creating new versions includes Francis Ford Coppola with both Apocalypse Now and The Godfather Part III and Ridley Scott with Blade Runner.
Scenes from the film — set between the Australian outback and New York City — where Mick Dundee, AKA Crocodile Dundee, gropes a cross-dresser in a bar, and later a woman at a party, have been removed, while others have been extended. The re-edited version of the film is to be called Crocodile Dundee: The Encore Cut, and will henceforth become the standard edition of the story.
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Summer sports and the heightened risk of skin cancer
3 February 2025
As someone with an extremely fair complexion, any amount of exposure to the sun can be risky, even over the winter months, when ultraviolet (UV) levels are generally lower. Trying though to explain this anyone who does not also have fair skin, is almost an uphill battle.
In fact, I’m alarmed at just how blasé some people are to the dangers of sun exposure, especially prolonged exposure. The sad reality is, that everyone, regardless of skin type, is at risk. Despite this, being out in the sun is an innate part of the Australian psyche. It’s no surprise then that rates of skin cancer in Australia are among the highest in the world.
But the message seems to getting through, albeit at a glacial pace. The Australian Institute of Sport has twigged onto the danger of sports events taking place in the blazing summer sun, and in 2023 said sporting organisations had a duty of care to provide safe environments for participants and spectators. It’s a start, but many sporting groups have been slow to take action.
But there are a number of options for creating sun safe sporting environments. These include providing adequate shade, and scheduling events at times of the day when UV levels are lower, and considering day/night fixtures where possible.
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The chances of aliens coming to Earth are a trillion to one, but still they come
30 January 2025
Has Earth, and the solar system, been the subject of visits from extraterrestrials from elsewhere in the cosmos? How else to account for the numerous flying saucer, AKA unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) sightings, of, in particular, the past eighty years? I guess it’s possible visitors from deep space have been our way, at least once in the last several thousand years, drawn here in the knowledge that Earth is capable of hosting intelligent life.
But, any long distance travellers would have to be “very, very lucky”, says Anders Sandberg, of the Future of Humanity Institute, at the University of Oxford, speaking to Peter Brannen, a writer for The Atlantic, in 2018. Very, very lucky to have survived as a species, in an unsafe universe, rather than having somehow circumvented the laws of physics to reach us, that is:
“Maybe the universe is super dangerous and Earth-like planets are destroyed at a very high rate,” Sandberg says. “But if the universe is big enough, then when observers do show up on some very, very rare planets, they’ll look at the record of meteor impacts and disasters and say, ‘The universe looks pretty safe!’ But the problem is, of course, that their existence depends on them being very, very lucky. They’re actually living in an unsafe universe and next Tuesday they might get a very nasty surprise.” If this is true, it might explain why our radio telescopes have reported only a stark silence from our cosmic neighborhood.
The Age of Disclosure, a documentary made by Dan Farah, posits however that extraterrestrials have indeed visited. At least one person whom Farah interviewed claimed to have seen alien beings. There’s the suggestion of a massive cover up. I won’t dwell on that point, but will say this story sounds like the scoop of the century, maybe the whole of recorded history.
Why then not take it the media? Why make us pay to see a film to learn the truth? Can’t someone who’s in the know just call a news conference and spill the beans instead?
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